Website Development Services Carbondale IL

Most small business owners know that a Web site is an important marketing tool. So it might seem to follow that if it’s smart to have one site, two – or three, or more – is even better.

That depends, says Marcia Yudkin, marketing consultant and author of Poor Richard's Web Site Marketing Makeover (Top Floor, 2001, $29.95). If you’re serving one target audience, a single site is the way to go, she says. That holds true even if you have several different products and services, as long as they’re of interest to that same group.

But if you have discrete interest groups within the larger target audience – such as scuba divers and elementary school teachers who are all looking for travel deals – “then it may make sense to have two Web sites.”

Divide and Conquer

Nate McKelvey’s experience bears that out. As CEO of Jets.com, based in Quincy, Mass., McKelvey had first established LegFind.com to help charter plane operators – his primary target audience – buy and sell excess charter time. The site was a success and is used regularly by several hundred charter operators.

But soon after launching his business, McKelvey started getting inquiries from consumers about how they could search for available charter flights. So the next year he set up a second site, Jets.com, where consumers can post their trip itinerary, and charter operators can bid to provide their transportation.

“They are such different audiences,” McKelvey says, that separate sites were necessary.

Author: Marcia Layton Turner

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